SERM. 


FOREIGN  MISSIONS. 


SERMON 


DKMVKKKI)  AT  THE  OPEN  I NCI 
OF  THE 


PRESBYTERIAN  CHURCH 


IN  THE 


TJ  nited  States  of  .A.  m e r i c a. 


SARATOGA, 

MAY  1 5th,  1884, 

BY 

Rev.  HENRY  HARRIS  JESSUP,  D.D. 


PUBLISHED  BY  FRIEND'S  OF  FOREIGN  MISSIONS. 


The  Assembly  having  been  constituted  with  prayer,  Rev. 
\V.  H.  Roberts,  D.  T).,  stepped  to  t lie  front  of  the  platform  and 
announced  that  when  the  last  General  Assembly  adjourned  it 
was  with  the  expectation  that  this  one  would  be  opened  with 
a sermon  by  Rev.  Edwin  F.  Hatfield,  D.D.,  the  moderator  of 
that  body.  As  the  Assembly  knew,  however,  that  venerable 
servant  of  the  Divine  Master  had  been  summoned  to  the 
“General  Assembly  and  Church  of  the  first  born,  whose  names 
are  written  in  Heaven.”  “ Blessed  are  they  who  die  in  the 
Lord.  They  rest  from  their  labors,  and  their  works  do  follow 
them.”  He  stated  that  under  the  rule,  the  present  General 
Assembly  would  be  opened  with  a sermon  by  Rev.  Henry  H. 
Jessup,  D.D.  of  the  Presbytery  of  Lackawanna,  Moderator  of 
the  General  Assembly  of  1879,  the  last  moderator  present,  being 
a commissioner.  After  appropriate  devotional  services,  Dr. 
Jessup  delivered  the  following  discourse  : 

Fear  not,  for  I am  with  thee ; I will  bring  thy  seed  from  the  east,  and 
gather  thee  from  the  west;  I will  say  to  the  north,  give  up;  and  to  the  south, 
keep  n't  back;  bring  my  sons  from  lar,  and  my  daughters  from  the  ends  of  the 
earth.” 

Isa. , 43:5,  6. 


“ Go  ye,  therefore,  and  teach  all  nations,  and,  lo,  I am  with  you  alway, 
even  unto  the  end  of  the  world.” 


Matt.  28:19,  20. 


Fathers  and  Brethren  : 

The  Messianic  prophet  and  the  Christ  of  all  the  prophets  here  unite  their 
voices  in  calling  the  whole  church  to  the  rescue  of  the  whole  world.  The  four 
quarters  of  the  globe  are  summoned.  The  Lord’s  sons  and  daughters  are  to 
be  gathered  from  the  ends  of  the  earth.  This  is  the  high,  the  supreme  mission 


4 


of  the  church  of  Christ.  This  will  remain  its  supreme  mission  until  “every 
knee  shall  bow  and  every  tongue  confess  that  Jesus  Christ  is  Lord,  to  the 
glory  of  God  the  Father.” 

I.  The  solemn  circumstances  in  which  we  assemble  this  day,  as  repre- 
sentatives of  one  branch  of  the  Christian  church,  with  two  offices  of  this  body  left 
vacant,  for  the  Brst  time  in  its  history,  by  the  death  of  one  who  was  both  its 
Moderator  and  Stated  Clerk,  are  a solemn  reminder  of  the  uncertainty  of  life,  and 
the  imminence  of  that  hour,  when  we  must  render  an  account  of  our 
stewardship. 

And  while  we  bow  reverently  to  the  wise  and  loving  decree  of  the  great 
Head  of  the  Church,  we  would  renewedly  dedicate  ourselves  to  his  service,  ask- 
ing only  for  new  opportunities  for  work,  and  power  from  on  high  that  we  may 
do  it  for  his  glory. 

The  great  work  committed  to  the  church  is  the  rescue  of  the  race.  Christ- 
ianity is  pure  unselfishness.  Christ  cime  to  earth  on  a mission  of  unselfish 
love,  to  those  who  might  reject  Him,  and  could  never  appreciate  or  repay  Him. 
His  children,  by  the  power  of  His  spirit  and  example,  love  all  men  for  His 
sake.  They  subordinate  self,  deny  self,  forget  self  and  go  out  of  self.  The 
church,  in  the  missionary  enterprise,  simply  goes  out  of  herself  for  the  rescue 
of  the  lost. 

She  would  spurn  to  do  it  for  reward,  for  glory,  or  for  sectarian  prejudice 
and  party  zeal.  She  engages  in  it  from  love,  pure,  devoted,  disinterested,  un- 
alloyed love.  In  serving  Christ  her  King,  her  love  is  loyally;  in  heeding  His 
last  command  it  is  obedience,  but  first  and  last,  her  spirit  is  the  subjection  of 
self  and  the  enthronement  of  love. 

II.  On  this  semi-centennial  of  our  foreign  missionary  labors  as  a church, 
after  a fifty  years’  campaign,  it  is  fitting  that  we  review  the  principles  and  the 
scope  of  our  work,  the  objects  and  motives  of  our  action.  It  is  well  at  times 
to  examine  the  foundation  of  our  foreign  work.  With  what  aim  and  purpose 
have  we  wrought  in  the  past?  With  what  aim  and  hope  are  we  to  work  in 
the  future  ? 

No  church  can  grow  by  taking  itself  as  a model.  Our  past  history  and 
achievements  are  not  enough  to  furnish  a standard  for  the  future.  The  life  of 
Christ,  His  words  and  His  work,  with  the  deeds  and  words  of  His  Apostles  are 
our  only  safe  model.  We  should  rise  higher  than  our  own  plane,  ever  press- 
ing and  reaching  toward  that  of  Christ  H.mself.  What  we  have  done  in  fifty- 
years  ought  to  make  us  grateful  to  Him  who  has  accepted  our  unworthy  ser- 
vices, but  should  be  no  criterion  for  the  future. 


5 


How  little  comparatively  have  we  accomplished,  at  home  and  abroad,  and 
how  much  remains  to  be  doDe! 

The  whole  church  as  a church  needs  a higher  consecration,  a consecration 
all  along  the  line,  of  person  and  property,  of  life  and  service,  of  ourselves  and 
our  children,  to  Him  who  has  bought  us  with  His  own  blood.  Water  will  not 
rise  higher  than  its  fountain  head.  A church  will  not  rise  higher  than  the  con- 
secration of  its  individual  members. 

Our  ecclesiastical  order  and  organization  are  well  adapted  to  missionary 
activity  and  progress.  The  individual,  the  church,  the  session,  the  Presbytery, 
the  Synod,  the  General  Assembly,  furnish  a gradation  of  forces,  for  securing 
personal  liberty,  concerted  action,  widely  diffused  information,  sympathetic 
co-operation,  and  that  consciousness  of  strength  and  efficiency  which  result 
from  union,  which  ought  to  make  us  a power  for  good  at  home  and  abroad. 

But  this  splendid  machinery,  whose  gearing  extends  by  shafts  and  wheels 
over  a continent,  needs  the  fire  of  spiritual  life,  of  personal  holiness,  of  indi- 
vidual consecration  through  the  entire  membership  of  the  church,  to  set  it  in 
motion,  aud  make  it  effective  for  the  salvation  of  a world. 

We  need  to  go  out  of  ourselves,  to  look  upon  our  church  machinery  as 
only  a means  to  an  end,  and  that  end  the  glory  of  Christ  in  saving  men  every- 
where. 

Our  church  convocations  should  bring  us  into  nearer  and  more  inspiring 
communion  with  Christ  and  with  one  another. 

The  modern  movement  toward  alliances  aud  reunions  in  the  various 
branches  of  our  own  church,  needs  the  vitalizing  of  the  missionary  spirit  to 
prevent  its  becoming  a means  of  mere  self-glorification,  or  leading  to  a more 
intense  denominationalism,  a display  of  our  ecclesiastical  armory,  or  the 
widening  of  a mere  theological  arena. 

A living  orthodoxy  is  a chain  binding  the  church  to  the  living  Christ,  and 
insuring  growth  and  progress.  A dead  orthodoxy  is  a splendid  seal  set  upon 
a sepulchre. 

The  reunion  of  1870  has  been  blessed  as  a Missionary  Reunion,  an  en- 
largement of  evangelistic  work,  an  increase  of  benevolent  giving  and  of  spirit- 
ual power. 

In  fifty  years  our  branch  of  the  Presbyterian  church  has  founded  29 
missions  in  ten  different  countries,  and  now  supports  447  American  mission- 
aries, men  and  women,  of  whom  160  are  ordained;  with  805  native  preachers, 
helpers  and  teachers,  a total  of  1,252  laborers  with  20,000  communicants, 
and  22,000  children  aud  youth  are  under  instruction,  and  tens  of  millions  of 
pages  of  Scriptures  and  other  books  are  annually  printed  at  our  mission 
presses. 


6 


Our  expenditure  in  foreign  lands  is  about  one-twentieth  of  our  home 
expenditure  in  all  the  departments  of  church  work.  The  number  of  ordained 
missionaries  sent  abroad  is  about  one  thirty-second,  of  the  ministerial  force  of 
the  church,  or  one  ordained  foreign  missionary  to  every  thirty-six  churches 
connected  with  the  General  Assembly. 

Our  corps  of  laborers  is  planted  in  some  of  the  most  difficult  outposts  of 
the  heathen  and  Mohammedan  world;  among  some  of  the  least  impressible 
and  least  mobile  elements  of  the  earth’s  population.  Yet  the  success  thus  far 
achieved  is  not  inconsiderable. 

There  is  great  cause  for  gratitude,  but  little  for  self  gratulation  in  the 
work  of  the  past.  We  have  only  begun  to  work. 

The  foundations  already  laid,  the  territories  explored,  the  languages 
mastered,  the  books  translated,  the  national  traits  understood,  the  false 
religions  unveiled,  the  churches  planted,  the  schools,  colleges  and  seminaries 
founded,  the  youth  instructed  and  the  confidence  gained  among  kings  and 
their  subjects ; all  these  are  but  a preparation  for  the  great  work  of  evangeli- 
zation lying  before  us  in  the  immediate  future. 

I IT.  Are  we  right  then  in  theory,  and  are  we  faithful  in  practice,  in  the 
foreign  missionary  work? 

We  believe  that  the  world  is  to  be  brought  to  Christ  through  the  out- 
pouring of' the  spirit  upon  men  who  have  heard  the  gospel  tidings.  Faith 
cometh  by  hearing,  and  hearing  by  the  word  of  God.  The  gospel  must  be 
preached,  and  preachers  must  be  sent.  A living  church  is  a preaching 
church.  We  are  commanded  to  “go  and  teach  the  nations.”  We  are  to 
preach,  to  found  churches,  to  train  and  ordain  a native  ministry,  to  encourage 
native  self-support,  to  translate  and  print  the  Scriptures  to  promote  education 
and  social  elevation. 

When  we  have  done  our  duty  in  teaching  the  nations,  Christ  Himself  has 
promised  to  do  the  rest.  In  one  country  one  form  of  teaching  may  be  the 
best — in  another  country  another.  In  one  place  a mighty  influence  will  be 
exerted  through  the  press  and  the  college,  in  another  by  the  introduction  of 
the  simplest  agricultural  and  mechanical  arts.  In  one  the  common  school,  in 
another  the  extended  tour  through  hundreds  of  cities  and  villages.  In  one 
place  medical  missions,  in  another  the  work  of  Christian  women.  In  one  the 
simplest  tract,  in  another  the  most  elaborate  Christian  literature.  In  one, 
the  ordaining  of  peasants  familiar  with  only  the  rudiments  of  knowledge,  to 
be  the  pastors  of  unlearned  peasants;  in  another,  the  most  careful  theological 
training  to  lit  men  to  preach  to  the  cultivated,  to  manage  the  affairs  of  metro- 
politan churches. 

There  are  “ diversities  of  gifts,  differences  of  administrations  and  di- 
versities of  operations,”  but  the  same  spirit,  the  same  God  which  worketh 
all  in  all. 


That  missionary  theory  is  correct  which  knows  but  the  one  foundation, 
Jesus  Christ,  but  is  willing  to  utilize  all  the  “ gold,  silver  and  precious  stones” 
which  our  modern  Christian  civilization  can  supply  in  building  on  that  foun- 
dation. We  may  rightly  use  at  home  and  abroad,  in  furthering  the  knowl- 
edge of  Christ,  all  the  facilities  and  appliances  for  printing,  teaching  and  dil- 
lusing truth,  which  the  inventive  intellect  of  the  nineteenth  century  has  laid  at 
the  feet  of  the  church.  We  no  longer  send  missionaries  to  China  in  sailing 
ships  on  a 120  days’  voyage  ; nor  do  we  print  Bibles  lor  millions  of  people  on 
a hand  press;  nor  raise  up  only  an  illiterate  native  ministry ; norsend  abroad 
us  missionaries  men  who  are  incapable  of  success  at  home. 

The  modes  of  preaching  the  gospel  are  various;  but  the  gospel  to  be 
preached  is  one.  If  missionaries  open  schools  and  teach,  the  Bible  and  the 
Christian  faith  must  be  the  foundation  of  all  their  teaching.  Dana,  Dawson, 
and  Guyot  are  illustrations  of  teaching  the  profoundest  and  the  purest 
science  in  the  reverent  spirit  of  Christian  faith.  Teaching  medicine  or  science 
simply  for  the  sake  of  medicine  and  science,  is  not  the  work  of  the  mission- 
ary; but  he  may  teach  both  in  a Christian  spirit,  and  with  thorough  instruction 
in  the  Bible,  and  thus  train  Christian  physicians  and  scholars  who  will  be 
pillars  of  the  church  of  their  native  land. 

Typecasting  and  book  making  .are  mechanic  arts,  but  when  done  to  give 
the  Bible  to  a nation,  as  was  done  by  Eli  Smith,  Van  Dyck,  Graham,  Carey, 
Marshman,  Morrison  and  Dyer,  in  giving  the  Bible  to  the  Arabs,  toe  Hindus 
and  the  Chinese,  they  become  a noble  form  and  mode  of  preaching  the  gos- 
pel. Livingston  was  teaching  when  traversing  Africa  with  his  Makololo  com- 
panions; Eli  Smith  was  teaching  when  he  spent  weary  months  in  the  type 
founderies  of  Germany  with  Hallock,  making  the  metallic  punches  and  matri- 
ces for  the  new,  so-called  American  font  of  Arabic  type  in  which  the  Bible 
was  to  be  printed  lor  sixt}r  millions  of  Arabic-speaking  people;  Hamlin  was 
teaching  when  training  the  persecuted  Armenians  to  bake  bread  for  the  Brit- 
ish Crimean  arm}r ; Dr.  Peter  Parker,  when  surrounded  by  thousands  of  pa- 
tients in  Canton ; Dr.  Pratt,  when  traveling  in  the  Taurus  mountains;  Dr. 
Azariah  Smith,  when  organizing  the  Christians  of  Aiutab  into  a self  supporting 
community;  the  Constantinople  missionaries,  Hamlin  and  Trowbridge,  when 
caring  for  hundreds  ot  cholera  patients;  Dr.  Grant,  when  journeying  from 
village  to  village  among  the  robber  Koords  ; Whiting  in  sacrificing  his  life  to 
save  the  famine  stricken  Chinese ; Calhoun  confided  in  and  trusted  by  both 
Druzes  and  Maronites  in  the  midst  of  their  fierce  civil  war,  when  both 
parties  alternately  brought  their  gold  and  jewels  to  bis  unprotected  house  for 
safe  keeping;  the  Syria  missionaries  during  the  massacres  of  1860,  when  for 
months  they  fed  and  clothed  the  twenty  thousand  refugees  from  Damascus 
and  the  Lebanon  ; Dr.  Van  Dyck,  in  translating  the  Bible  and  treating  thous- 
ands of  sufferers  from  the  virulent  eastern  ophthalmia;  Dr.  Post,  in  perform- 


8 


ing  marvelous  surgical  operations,  and  in  the  intervals  o ( leisure  making  a 
concordance  of  the  Arabic  Bible  which  cost  him  and  his  assistants  15  000 
hours  of  labor ; Dr.  West,  who  disarmed  the  hitter  hostility  of  Armenian 
ecclesiastics  and  Turkish  Pashas,  and  won  them  to  friendship  by  the  patient 
and  skillful  use  of  his  high  medical  knowledge;  Dr.  Osgood,  in  delivering 
hundreds  of  despairing  victims  from  the  opium  curse  in  China;  Miss  Dr. 
Howard,  in  successfully  treating  the  wife  of  Li  Hung  Chang;  Bishop  Patte- 
son  and  his  colleagues,  in  teaching  the  South  Sea  Islanders  the  simplest  arts  of 
decency  in  clothing,  and  of  comfort  in  building  their  houses;  these  and  mul 
titudes  of  others  in  Asia,  Africa,  Europe,  America  and  the  far  of!'  isles,  have 
truly  obeyed  the  Saviour’s  last  command,  in  teachingthe  gospel,  by  living  the 
gospel  and  exhibiting  its  blissed  fruits  amid  famine  and  pestilence,  want  and 
nakedness,  cannibalism  and  savage  ferocity,  wars  and  massacres,  relieving 
suffering,  healing  disease,  instructing  ignorance  and  guiding  lost  men  to  a 
Saviour. 

The  world  needs  the  gospel  and  the  gospel  needs  laborers  of  every 
kind  ; and  the  gospel  needed,  is 

IV.  The  gospel  in  its  purity  and  entirety ; the  pure  word  of  God  with 
its  converting  and  sanctifying  power ; not  a gospel  diluted  and  attenuated  to 
suit  an  enfeebled  sentiment,  nor  a mutilated  gospel,  but  the  gospel  of  salvation 
by  faith  in  an  atoning  Saviour. 

An  emasculated  gospel,  robbed  of  the  sanctions  of  the  moral  government 
of  God;  which  denies  to  the  Judge  of  all  the  earth,  the  attributes  which  it  re- 
quires in  the  simplest  human  magistrate;  whose  excessive  tenderness  rejects 
from  the  Bible  the  records  of  the  Noachiati  deluge,  the  destruction  of  Sodom, 
the  overthrow  of  Pharaoh  and  his  host,  and  the  extermination  of  the  Canaan ites, 
as  inconsistent  with  the  character  of  its  effeminate  deity ; which  bends  reve- 
lation to  the  reason,  though  it  break  in  the  process,  instead  of  bowing  its 
reason  reverently  to  the  revelation  of  God;  which  is  sure  of  nothing  but  the 
assumption  that  every  man’s  Bible  is  just  so  much  of  the  Scripture,  and  no 
more,  as  suits  his  own  individual  reason  ; which  exalts  a fallible  individual 
consciousness  above  the  infallible  word  of  the  infallible  God;  we  say  such  a 
gospel  or  religion  or  faith  as  this,  will  never  believe  in  missionary  work  as  a 
rescue  of  the  perishing,  at  home  or  abroad. 

And  we  may  further  insist,  that  sucli  a gospel  is  not  the  gospel  to  pro- 
claim to  the  sorrowing,  suffering,  bond-children  of  Satan  in  heathen  and 
Mohammedan  lands.  It  is  not  the  gospel  which  the  world  wants. 

The  world  is  groaning  under  the  burden  of  sin.  It  is  full  of  colossal 
systems  of  creature  worship,  of  propitiatory  sacrifices,  of  self  torture,  of 
pilgrimages,  of  bloody  rites,  of  burnt  offerings  of  human  victims,  which  men, 
in  the  dark  groping  of  their  unrest,  have  invented,  or  amid  the  wreck  of  an- 


9 


cient  traditions  have  clutched  at  with  t ho  grip  of  despair,  to  satisfy  the  sense 
of  deserved  retribution  for  sin.  It  is  an  insult  to  the  moral  yearnings  of 
man’s  nature  to  offer  him  such  a stone,  when  he  is  dying  of  hunger  fur  bread. 
Of  what  use  is  it  to  tell  the  Pagan  and  the  Mohammedan,  the  “ Barbarian 
and  the  Scythian,”  that  we  have  crossed  seas  and  continents  burning  with 
zeal  to  preach  to  them  the  glorious  gospol  of  uncertainty  : to  enlist  recruits 
in  the  army  of  mighty  doubters;  to  assure  them  that  there  is  nothing  sure; 
to  tell  them  to  cultivate  their  consciousness,  if,  perchance,  they  may  evolve 
from  it  a system  of  faith  which  will  stand  the  test  of  the  microscope  and  the 
crucible. 

When  human  hearts  are  aching  and  bleeding  over  sorrow  and  sickness, 
over  the  bereavements,  the  broken  hopes  and  racking  anxieties  of  life,  and 
struggling  with  sin  and  evil,  not  knowing  whence  they  came  or  whither  they 
are  going,  what  mockery  to  raise  their  hopes  of  relief  and  comfort,  and  then 
drive  them  to  a deeper  misery,  by  offering  such  a diet  of  despair! 

Such  revelations  as  glimmer  in  the  dawn  of  the  “new  theologies,’’  have 
little  in  common  with  that  “true  light  which  lighteth  every  man  that  cometh 
into  the  world,”  that  ‘ light  from  heaven  above  the  brightness  of  the  sun,” 
which  burned  the  image  of  the  glorified  Son  of  God  into  the  soul  of  Saul  of 
Tarsus,  and  sent  him  forth  through  Asia  and  Europe,  “ to  open  the  eyes  of 
the  Gentiles,  to  turn  them  from  darkness  to  light  and  from  the  power  of  .Satan 
unto  God,  that  they  might  receive  forgiveness  of  sins,  and  inheritance  among 
them  which  are  sanctified  by  faith  in  Jesus  Christ.”  ( Acts  26:17). 

The  world  is  weary  with  its  burden  of  sin.  Hinduism  is  weary  of  its 
funeral  pyres  and  Juggernauts,  its  shriveled  arms,  its  child  widows  and 
ferocious  cruelties.  Islam  is  weary  of  its  relentless  ritual,  its  meaningless 
lasts,  its  vain  repetitions,  its  decimating  pilgrimages  to  Mecca,  its  millions  of 
women  staggering  broken  hearted  down  to  a hopeless  grave. 

Buddhism  is  weary  of  its  dreary  philosoph}*  iu  which  is  no  inspiration  of 
hope,  and  whose  highest  aspiration  is  the  wretched  negation  of  non-existence. 
And  no  wonder,  when  its  sacred  books  teach  such  doctrines  as  these,  that 
“ all  vice  and  virtue  are  a dream.”  “ True  knowledge  is  attained  by  doing 
nothing.”  “ Let  the  mi.:d  do  nothing,  observe  nothing,  aim  at  nothing,  hold 
fast  to  nothing,  that  is  Buddha.”  A clod  after  countless  ages  may  become  a 
God,  and  then  become  a clod  again.  “ Avoid  both  vice  and  virtue.  He  that 
can  do  this  is  a religious  man.” 

Japan  is  weary  of  vain  prostrations,  of  calling  for  ages  on  deaf  and  dumb 
images,  without  a response  or  a hope  of  relief.  The  millions  of  Africa  are 
weary  of  centuries  of  internecine  war,  of  cannibalism  and  living  burials,  of 
the  horrible  fears  of  dark  superstition,  of  the  sickening  atrocities  of  slavery 
and  the  slave  trade,  of  debasing  sensuality,  cruelty  and  crime. 

The  whole  world  is  weary,  and  clamors  and  pleads  for  rest,  for  pardon 


10 


of  sin,  for  peace  of  conscience,  for  a pathway  of  light  out  of  this  prison  of 
darkness. 

And  what  shall  we  preach  to  them?  What  can  we  preach  to  them  but 
the  glad  tidings  of  salvation  through  faith  in  the  crucified  Son  of  God? 

With  what  gladness,  with  what  confidence  we  can  teach  them  the  inspir- 
ing words,  “Come  unto  Me  all  ye  that  labor  and  are  heavy  laden  and  I will 
give  you  rest.’’  “ T am  the  light  of  the  world.”  If  any  man  thirst  let  him 
come  unto  Me  and  drink.”  “ The  blood  of  Jesus  Christ  His  son  cleanseth 
us  from  all  sin.”  “ Whom  God  hath  set  forth  to  be  a propitiation,  through 
faith  in  His  blood,  to  declare  His  right eousness  for  the  remission  of  sins  that 
are  past — that  He  might  be  just  and  the  justifier  of  him  which  believeth  in 
Jesus.” 

On  what  solid  rock  do  we  stand,  when  preaching  such  a gospel? 

V.  Christianity  comes  to  the  world  as  a universal  religion.  Christ  comes 
as  the  universal  Christ — the  Christ  of  all  men — the  desire  of  all  the  nations. 

The  Brahmo  Somaj  call  for  an  Oriental  Christ;  one  fitted  especially  for 
India  and  the  Hindus.  But  in  the  narrow  sense  in  which  the  claim  is  made 
there  is  no  Oriental  Christ.  There  can  be  no  local,  limited,  national,  tribal 
Christ.  The  Christ  of  God  is  the  Christ  of  the  wdiole  race. 

Mohammed  came  to  a tribe,  founded  a ritual  system  based  on  Oriental 
ideas  and  Arab  national  peculiarities.  In  his  character  were  combined,  as 
has  been  said,  “ Oriental  dreaminess,  Oriental  frenzy,  Oriental  endurance  and 
fortitude,  Oriental  sensuality,  Oriental  despotism,  with  Arab  enterprise,  Arab 
vindictiveness  and  Arab  subtlety.”  His  system  is  Arab  and  Ishmaelitic. 
And  the  best  comment  on  Islam  is  the  moral,  intellectual,  social  and  spiritual 
condition  of  the  Mohammedan  world  to-day.  Gautama  Buddha  came  to  a 
tribe  and  founded  a local  tribal  system,  and  the  best  comment  on  the  so-called 
Light  of  Asia,  is  the  moral,  social  and  spiritual  darkness  of  the  Asia  of  to- 
day. 

But  in  the  religion  of  Christ  is  no  mark  of  nationality.  As  Goldwiti 
Smith  has  so  well  said,  “ It  was  constructed  at  the  confluence  of  three  races, 
the  Jewish,  the  Roman,  and  the  Greek,  each  of  which  had  strong  national 
peculiarities  of  itr,  own.  A single  touch,  a single  taint  of  any  one  of  those 
peculiarities,  and  the  character  would  have  been  national,  not  universal,  tran- 
sient, not  eternal.  It  might  have  been  the  highest  character  in  history,  but 
it  would  have  been  disqualified  from  being  the  ideal.  Supposing  it  to  have 
been  human,  the  chances  v ere  infinite  against  its  escaping  any  tincture  of  the 
fanaticism,  formalism  and  exclusiveness  of  the  Jew,  of  the  political  pride  of 
the  Roman,  of  the  intellectual  pride  of  the  Greek.  Yet  it  has  entirely 
escaped  them  all.”  There  may  be  danger,  in  our  modern  modes  of  thought 
and  expression,  and  our  modern  system  af  organized  effort,  that  we  present 


11 


the  Christ  to  others  too  much  as  a foreign  Christ,  as  a part  of  our  civilization, 
our  national  manners  and  customs,  as  an  American,  or  an  English  or  a Euro 
pean  Christ,  In  founding  churches  and  schools,  in  translating  books,  in  teach- 
ing the  young,  in  forming  a literature,  we  should  aim  to  divest  our  theology, 
our  thoughts  and  words,  of  whatever  is  purely  local  and  national,  and  present 
the  gospel  to  the  nations  in  all  its  original  simplicity,  purity  and  catholicity. 

Give  India  the  gospel  which  is  meant  for  all  men.  Give  China  the  same 
gospel,  and  Africa,  Japan  and  Western  Asia,  the  same  gospel,  drawn  from 
the  very  words  of  the  New  Testament,  with  as  little  of  our  local  coloring  and 
tiibal  terminology,  as  is  consistent  with  a clear  and  accurate  expression  of 
the  doctrines  of  Christ. 

And  are  the  Reformed  churches  to  carry  their  minute  differences  for- 
ever into  the  heathen  and  Mohammedan  world?  Are  there  to  be  half  a dozen 
or  a dozen  kinds  of  Presbyterian  Presbyteries  gathered  in  every  distant  prov- 
ince and  empire  ? Is  it  not  a grievous  offence  for  us  to  attempt  to  force  upon 
Asiatics  and  Africans  the  hair  splitting  distinctions  wrought  out  and  fought 
out  years  ago  in  Great  Britain  and  America? 

Is  not  one  Reformed  church  enough  for  India,  China,  Japan  and 
A tnerica  ? 

It  is  time  for  comity  and  co-operation  in  the  missionary  work  to  begin 
in  earnest,  at  least  among  the  millions  of  the  Presbyterian  faith. 

A rational  solution  of  the  question  maybe  found  in  leaving  the  whole 
matter  to  the  missionaries  on  the  ground.  Let  each  branch  of  the  church  en- 
courage co-operation  and  communion  on  the  part  of  its  missionaries  with 
those  of  all  branches  of  the  Reformed  church  abroad,  and  allow  all  Presbyr- 
terian  Missions,  at  least,  to  unite  in  foreign  lands  in  a common  organization, 
so  as  to  present  to  the  unevangelized  world  only  their  points  of  agreement, 
the  common  “ standards,”  and  above  all  their  common  standing  on  the  Gospel 
of  a common  Saviour. 

How  it  lowers  the  exalted  Son  of  God  to  have  him  understood  among  the 
heathen  as  a Presbyterian  Christ,  a Methodist,  a Baptist,  a Congregational  or 
an  Episcopal  Christ ! Let  not  our  Prophet  Priest  and  King  be  veiled  or 
masked  by  our  peculiar  distinctions  aud  names. 

Christianity  as  the  divine  plan  for  human  redemption  has  already  proved 
its  adaptedness  to  all  men  in  all  lands.  It  offers  free  deliverance  from  sin 
and  death  through  Christ  the  Son  of  God.  Unaided  by  arms  and  armies,  it 
conquered  Greece  and  Rome,  Carthage  and  Gaul,  Britain  and  Scandinavia. 
It  transformed  alike  the  cultivated  Roman  and  the  savage  cannibals  of  Scot- 
land and  England.  It  met  the  wants  and  tastes  of  the  Semitic  Jews  and 
Arabs,  the  Japhetic  Teutons  and  the  Hamitic  Egyptians.  It  proved  itself 
adapted  to  East  and  West,  North  and  South  alike.  To  the  Oriental,  it  met 
Oriental  wants,  because  Orientals  are  sinners  and  need  a Saviour.  To  the 


12 


Occidental,  it  met  Occidental  wants,  because  Occidentals  are  sinners  and  need 
a Saviour.  There  is  no  greater  difference  between  Hindu  and  Briton  or 
American  to-day,  than  there  were  was  between  Syrian  and  Briton  in  the  first 
century.  Christ  is  Oriental  as  the  sun  is  Oriental.  He  rose  in  the  Orient, 
but  shines  all  round  the  world  and  shines  for  all  and  forever. 

If  the  Syrian  ana  the  Hindu  claim  to-day,  that  because  Cnrist  was  an 
Asiatic,  they  can  understand  his  language  and  his  human  life  better  than  we 
of  the  West,  let  us  rejoice  with  them,  and  pray  that  they  may  not  be  satis- 
fied with  the  mere  external  setting  of  the  celestial  jewel. 

But  when  a Mozoomdar,  whose  words  touch  our  very  souls  by  their  elo- 
quent pathos  and  tender  longing  after  Christ,  can  write  a book  on  the  Christ, 
without  one  word  of  “ the  blood  of  Jesus,  which  cleanseth  us  from  all  sin;’’ 
without  one  intimation  that  ‘ Christ  once  bore  our  sins  in  his  own  body  on  the 
tree,”  or  that  we  are  “ accepted  in  the  Beloved  in  whom  we  have  redemption 
through  His  blood,”  we  can  but  long  that  he  may  find  peace  to  his  troubled, 
spirit  in  that  pardon  through  the  blood  of  Christ  which  a Sheshadri,  and  a 
hundred  thousand  others  of  his  own  countrymen  have  found. 

VI.  Again,  we  find  the  missionary  spirit  a necessity  to  the  vitality  and 
purity  of  the  church. 

The  Reformation  of  the  sixteenth  century  lost  a great  part  of  its  power 
in  the  world,  by  centering  its  thoughts  and  efforts  upon  itself.  The  mighty 
intellectual  energy  awakened  to  new  life  and  power  by  the  open  Bible,  soon 
turned  and  employed  itself  in  domestic  controversy.  It  spent  itsell  upon 
itself.  The  church  was  torn  by  dissensions,  and  the  mind  of  its  leaders  was 
spun  out  into  attenuated  webs  of  philosophical  hair  splitting  instead  of  con- 
centrating itself  upon  a world’s  salvation.  The  result  was  formalism,  Iruitless 
speculation  and  spiritual  death. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  pilgrims  of  the  Mayflower,  who  turned  their  faces 
westward  to  the  heathen  continent  of  America,  instead  of  seeking  simply 
their  own  ease  or  even  freedom  from  persecution,  laid  it  down  as  a fundamen- 
tal principle  that  “ the  first  great  object  of  their  migration  to  America  was  the 
evangelizing  of  the  American  savages. ” Mr.  Morton,  brother-in-law  of  Gov- 
ernor Bradford,  says  in  a preface  to  the  letter  of  John  Robinson,  that  “the 
desire  of  carrying  the  Gospel  of  Christ  into  those  foreign  parts  among  those 
people  that  as  yet  have  had  no  knowledge  nor  test  of  God,”  was  more  import- 
ant in  their  minds  than  “ procuring  a quiet  and  comfortable  habitation.” 
Robert  Cushman,  in  pleading  for  reinforcements  to  the  Plymouth  colony, 
stirs  up  the  English  people  with  eloquent  missionary  appeals,  lie  says: 

“ A man  must  not  expect  only  to  live  and  do  good  to  himself,  but  he 
should  see  where  he  can  live  to  do  most  good  unto  others  ; for  as  one  saith, 

‘ he  whose  living  is  but  for  himself,  it  is  time  he  were  dead.’  I know  many 


who  sit  here  still,  with  their  talent  in  ;i  napkin,  having  notable  endowments 
both  of  body  and  mind,  and  might  do  great  good  if  they  were  in  some  places, 
which  here  do  none,  nor  can  do  none,  and  yet,  through  fleshly  fear,  niceness 
and  straitness  ol  heart,  sit  still  and  look  on,  and  will  not  hazard  a dram  ol 
health,  noi  a day  of  pleasure,  nor  an  hour  of  rest,  to  further  the  knowledge 
and  salvation  of  the  sous  of  Adam  in  that  new  world,  where  a drop  ol  the 
knowledge  of  Christ  is  most  precious,  which  is  here  not  set  by.  Now  what 
shall  we  say  to  such  a profession  of  Christ,  to  which  is  joined  no  more  denial 
of  a man’s  self  : ' 

“ And  seeing  we  daily  pray  for  the  conversion  of  the  heathens,  we  must 
consider  whether  there  be  not  some  ordinary  means  and  course  for  us  to  take 
to  convert  them,  or  whether  prayer  lor  them  be  only  referred  to  God’s  extra 
ordinary  work  from  heaven.  Now  it  seemeth  unto  me  we  ought  also  to  en- 
deavour to  use  the  means  to  convert  them  and  the  means  cannot  he  used,  un- 
less we  go  to  them  or  they  come  to  us.  To  us  they  cannot  come,  our  land  is 
lull ; to  them  we  may  go,  their  land  is  empty  ; as  the  enterprise  is  weighty 
and  difficult,  so  the  honor  is  more  worthy — chiefly  to  display  the  efficacy  and 
power  of  the  Gospel  in  zealous  preaching,  professing  and  wise  walking  under 
it.  before  the  faces  of  these  poor  blind  infidels. 

As  to  such  as  object  to  the  todiousness  of  the  voyage  thither,  the  danger 
of  pirates’ robbery,  and  of  the  savages’ treachery,  these  are  but  lions  in  the 
way,  and  it  were  well  tor  such  men  if  they  were  in  heaven,  for  who  can  show 
them  a place  in  this  world  where  iniquity  shall  not  compass  them  at  the  heels; 
and  where  they  shall  have  a day  without  grief  or  a lease  of  life  for  a moment, 
and  who  can  tell  but  God  what  dangers  may  lie  at  our  doors  even  in  our  native 
country,  or  when  God  will  cause  our  sun  to  go  down  at  noonday, — and  in  the 
midst,  of  our  peace  and  security  la)'  upon  its  some  lasting  scourge  for  our  so 
long  neglect  of  his  most  glorious  Gospel. 

*•  l speak  nothing  about  the  bitter  contention  that  hath  been  about  relig- 
ion, by  writing,  disputing  and  inveighing  earnestly  one  against  another,  the 
beat  of  which  zeal,  if  it  were  turned  against  the  rude  barbarism  of  the  heathens, 
might  do  more  good  in  a day  than  it  hath  done  here  in  many  years.  Neither 
need  I speak  of  the  little  love  to  the  Gospel  and  the  little  profit  which  is  made 
by  the  preachers  in  most  places,  which  might  easily  drive  the  zealous  to  the 
heathens  who,  no  doubt,  if  they  had  but  a drop  of  that  knowledge  which  here 
flieth  about  the  streets,  would  be  filled  with  exceeding  joy  and  gladness.” 

This  is  the  missionary  spirit  of  the  Pilgrim  fathers,  and  we  do  not  wonder 
at  their  success  in  rearing  a moral  and  spiritual  fabric  on  this  continent  which 
has  received  such  manifest  tokens  of  the  Divine  favor. 

Would  that  the  voice  of  the  earnest  preacher  might  have  been  heard  in 
the  councils  of  the  post  reformation  fathers,  that  they  might  have  turned  the 
heat  of  their  zeal  against  the  rude  barbarism  of  the  heathen.”  instead  of  in- 
veighing against  one  another. 


14 


The  missionary  spirit  of  that  age  found  expression  also  in  the  renewal  of 
the  missionary  charter  granted  by  Cromwell  “ for  promoting  and  propagating 
the  Gospel  in  New  England,”  through  the  influence  of  Richard  Baxter  and 
Lord  Chancellor  Hyde.  The  most  eminent  of  their  missionaries  was  John 
Eliot,  who,  aided  by  Hon.  Robert  Boyle,  published  the  Bible  in  the  Indian 
language  in  I 664,  stating  as  the  secret  of  his  success,  “prayers  and  pains, 
through  faith  in  Jesus  Christ  will  do  anything.”  The  Colonial  seai  of  Massa- 
chusetts in  1 628  had  the  device  of  an  Indian  upon  it,  with  a motto  in  his 
mouth,  “ Come  over  and  help  us.”  This  is  a spirit  which  is  worthy  of  imita- 
tion in  all  ages.  Alas  that  it  has  been  so  feebly  imitated  in  the  treatment  of 
the  American  Aborigines  by  the  descendants  of  the  Pilgrims,  and  that  the 
Eliots  and  Brainerds,  the  Wrights  and  Ivingsburys  have  been  so  conspicuously 
few  in  number! 

Never  was  it  more  important  to  bear  it  in  mind  than  now  that  life  is  es- 
sential to  purity.  The  chief  hope  of  the  Church  of  Christ  in  America,  in  all 
its  branches,  lies  in  its  fidelity  to  a perishing  world.  As  has  been  well  said, 
“ the  question  now  is,  not  whether  the  heathen  can  be  saved  without  the  gos- 
pel, but  whether  we  can  be  saved  if  we  do  not  give  them  the  gospel.” 

The  best  remedy  for  the  bitter  and  aimless  controversies  which  so  often 
rend  the  church,  is  personal  consecration  t-o  the  salvation  of  a lost  world. 

The  church  would  have  been  saved  the  wear  and  weariness  of  many  an 
invasion  of  heresy,  were  all  its  ministers  laboring  in  earnest  for  souls. 

Is  it  not  true  that  the  majority  of  the  inventors  of  new  theologies,  the  as- 
sailants of  God’s  word,  the  troublers  of  Israel,  are  men  who  have  no  sympa- 
thy with  the  world’s  evangelization,  the  progress  of  Christ’s  kingdom,  and  the 
fulfilment  of  his  last  command? 

A question  like  this  is  always  a practical  one  to  the  church.  The  mis- 
sionary spirit  is  a necessity  to  our  churches,  our  colleges,  our  Theological 
seminaries,  our  Ecclesiastical  Convocations.  The  stream,  to  be  kept  pure, 
must  be  kept  flowing.  Life  and  motion  are  the  conditions  of  purity.  Obedi- 
ence to  the  will  of  Christ  is  essentia!  to  doctrinal  orthodoxy.  Out  of  the 
stagnant  marshes  of  selfish  indolence  arise  the  poisonous  exhalations  which 
stifle  the  life  of  the  church.  “ If  any  man  will  do  His  will,  he  shall  know  of 
the  doctrine  whether  it  be  of  God.” 

VII.  And  were  we  disposed  to  excuse  ourselves,  we  cannot  honestly 
plead  the  spent  excuses  of  a past  age.  Shall  we  offer  the  plea  of  impotence , 
that  we  cannot  send  the  gospel,  that  we  cannot  spare  our  sons  and  daughters 
or  raise  the  means  to  sustain  so  vast  an  undertaking? 

The  church  of  Antioch  might  with  some  show  of  reason  have  pleaded  im- 
potence, when  amidst  its  persecutions  and  feeble  numbers,  the  Holy  Ghost 
bade  it  “Separate  me  Barnabas  and  Saul.” 

But  how  can  we  plead  it,  when  there  are  thousands  of  individuals  in  our 


15 


churches  who  have  greater  financial  resources  than  the  entire  Christian  church 
of  that  age,  and  not  a lew  who  might  lay  a track  of  Bibles  all  the  way  Ironi 
San  Francisco  to  Jerusalem  and  then  not  exhaust  hall  their  fortune;  when  the 
intellectual,  spiritual  and  physical  agencies  ready  to  our  hand  are  well  nigh 
illimitable?  Shall  «e  as  a Christian  nation,  plead  impotence,  when  we  can 
span  n continent  with  quadruple  bands  ot  steel,  adorn  our  cities  with  palaces, 
and  attain  a scale  of  social  expenditure  never  equalled;  when  our  fertile 
fields  and  orchards,  our  iron  furnaces,  our  veins  of  gold  and  silver,  our  cotton 
mills  and  railways,  our  banks  and  commercial  establishments  are  pouring 
their  wealth  into  the  lap  ot  the  church,  as  well  as  the  world  ? 

Nor  can  we  plead  that  the  heathen  ii<>  not  neeii  the  gospel.  I his  plea 
might  have  been  urged,  before  the  true  condition  and  character  ol  the  heathen 
were  known,  or  by  men  who  deny  the  gospel  as  a means  ol  salvation,  or  who 
claim  that  all  religions  are  equally  good  and  equally  bad.  or  that  all  men 
will  be  saved  whether  in  Christ  or  out  nf  Christ. 

But  we  who  believe  the  gospel,  who  believe  that  all  men  are  under  con- 
demnation for  sin,  that  “ Christ  came  to  seek  and  save  that  which  was  lost,’ 
that  conscience  is  a law  by  which  the  heathen  will  be  judged  and  by  which 
they  will  perish  without  the  gospel;  and  that  the  Christ  the  son  of  God,  has 
bidden  us  go  teach  the  nations,  because  without  this  gospel  teaching  there  i> 
no  hope  for  the  nations;  that  they  need  the  gospel  and  have  a right  to  the 
gospel:  surely,  we.  as  Christians  and  obedient  children  of  the  great  Redeemer, 
can  never  excuse  our  own  neglect  by  the  plea  that  they  do  not  reed  what  wc 
confess  that  we  need,  amid  all  our  light  and  knowledge!  We  do  need  it.  our 
children  need  it,  our  country  needs  it.  ai  d what  then  shall  we  say  of  1,000, 
000,000  who  have  none  of  our  light  or  our  means  of  salvation. 

Nor  can  we  enter  the  plea  of  geographical  ignorance.  The  apostles  with 
their  limited  knowledge  ol  geography  might  have  begged  to  be  excused  from 
entering  the  vast  terra  incognita  outside  the  Roman  Rmpire,  or  even  from 
essaying  to  reach  the  limits  ol  the  Empire  itself,  so  vast,  so  varied,  so  well 
nigh  unintelligible  to  the  Jews  of  Palestine.  Bui  no.  Athens  and  Rome, 
Egypt  and  Syria.  Macedonia  and  India,  Arabia  and  the  Black  Sea  provinces 
were  visited  in  turn  by  those  whose  teet  were  beautiful  alike  on  the  moun- 
tains and  the  plains  in  bearing  the  glad  tidings  of  peace. 

And  even  in  later  ages,  ignorance  might  have  been  urged  by  those  who 
had  never  heard  of  the  remote  parts  of  Asia  and  Africa,  the  Isles  of  the  Sea 
and  the  Western  Continent.  But  on  this  question  our  mouths  are  stopped. 
All  continents  are  now  known  and  largely  explored.  We  know  too  much  lor 
our  own  peace  of  couscience.  Our  morning  journals  epitomize  the  news  ol 
ihe  world,  and  publish  for  a nation  of  readers,  maps,  charts  and  statistics, 
more  accurate  and  extensive  than  anything  known  to  the  scientific  world  a 
hundred  years  ago. 

Our  school  children  will  describe  the  languages,  religious  customs  and 


16 


populations  of  countries  in  a manner  to  astonish  a Copernicus  or  a Kepler. 

We  know  where  the  heathen  and  Mohammedans  live,  what  they  believe, 
their  numbers,  their  deep  degradation  and  their  spiritual  needs.  We  know 
that  they  are  numerous  enough  to  give  every  church  a vast  field  of  labor,  and 
degraded  enough,  to  awaken  our  sympathies  and  our  zeal. 

We  cannot  plead  preoccupation.  The  infant  churches  of  Syria  and  Asia 
Minor  might  have  pleaded  it,  with  the  fires  of  persecution  burning  around 
them  and  the  hungry  lions  ready  to  tear  them  in  pieces  in  the  amphitheatres 
of  a hundred  cities. 

The  Reformers  of  the  16th  century  might  have  urged  it,  hemmed  in  be- 
tween the  fanatical  hatred  of  an  unscrupulous  hierarchy,  and  the  well- trained 
armies  of  princes  and  emperois.  But  the  apostolic  churches  testified  in  the 
midst  of  the  flames  and  preached  the  Gospel  of  peace  to  its  persecutors, 
bursting  the  barriers  by  an  unquenchable  zeal,  and  overflowing  the  whole 
Roman  Empire.  Whatever  may  be  said  in  extenuation  of  the  neglect  by 
the  Reformers,  of  a missionary  zeal  for  the  “ dark  places  of  the  earth,”  they 
had  far  more  to  preoccupy  them  than  has  any  church  in  this  19th  century. 
But  the  plea  of  preoccupation  is  exhausted.  Its  day  is  spent.  The  com- 
mand *•  Go  and  teach  all  natious,”  never  came  to  a people  better  equipped 
for  work,  with  a larger  available  Christian  army,  of  greater  mobility  and 
facility  of  action,  or  with  ampler  resources,  than  the  American  church  of  to- 
day. It,  is  free  to  act,  untiammeled  by  any  alliance  with  the  political  states, 
unfettered  by  hierarchical  dictation,  unrestrained  by  the  barriers  of  internal 
dissension,  or  the  pressure  of  a great  work  at  home  undone  and  with  no  one 
to  do  it. 

Our  own  tribe  in  Israel,  “by  their  generations,  after  their  families,  by  the 
house  of  their  fathers,  according  to  the  number  of  the  names,  all  that  are  able 
to  go  forth  to  war  ” in  the  service  of  ( 'hrist  our  King,  are  six  hundred  thousand 
church  members,  and  a constituency  of  millions.  And  out  of  this  mighty 
host,  we  have  sent  abroad  160  ordained  missionaries  and  287  lay  missionaries 
male  and  female.  Can  it  be  said  that  we  are  so  preoccupied  with  ourselves,  in 
caring  for  our  children,  our  neighbors,  our  countrymen,  that  these  4-47  are  all  our 
church  can  spare  to  labor  for  1,000,000,000  of  our  race  who  are  sitting  in 
darkness? 

Bet  tii e time  past  suffice  lor  us  and  our  fathers  to  have  wrought  out  such 
excuses  as  this.  Nebemiah  was  doing  a great  work  among  the  ruins  of  Jeru- 
salem, and  “ could  not  come  down.”  We  are  doing  a greater  work  than  Ne- 
hemiah  in  our  own  Zion,  but  we  can  come  down,  or  rather  come  up  to  the 
dignity  and  honor  and  privilege  of  this  great  work  committed  to  us  by  the 
Prince  of  the  House  ol  David.  We  cannot  afford  to  be  preoccupied,  to  the 
exclusion  of  the  first  great  duty  of  the  church.  “The  time  ol  waiting  in  Jeru- 
salem has  passed.  The  church  has  already  been  endued  with  power  from  on 


17 


liiyrli.  It  is  now  the  time  to  go  and  do  the  blessed  work  of  saving  a world. 

Preoccupied,  when  Christ  the  Lord  is  calling  I Preoccupied,  when  earth’s 
millions  are  calling  ! Is  there  more  pressing  business  than  the  business  of 
the  King?  And  are  we  to  hope  for  salvation  to  ourselves,  or  our  churches, 
or  our  nation,  it  we  neglect  the  last  command  of  the  ascending  King  of 
Kings  ? 

VIII.  Missions  are  the  church’s  unpai  I debt  to  the  heathen  world.  The 
great  apostle  declared  himself  a debtor  both  to  the  Greeks  and  to  the  Bar- 
barians. They  had  done  nothing  for  him,  but  Christ’s  work  for  him  made 
him  a debtor  to  all.  And  this  debt  was  to  be  paid.  No  claims  of  the  Israe- 
litish  nation,  no  ties  of  blood  relationship,  no  charms  of  the  society  and  glory 
ot  the  holy  city  Jerusalem,  no  associations  ol  the  sacred  spot  where  the 
Lord  ol  glory  was  crucified,  and  ascended  to  Heaven,  could  free  tin*  great 
apostle  from  that  debt  of  love  and  service  which  he  owed  to  the  heathen 
world.  Paul  felt  and  knew,  and  acted  as  il  he  felt  and  knew,  that  this  debt 
must  be  paid,  that  he  owed  it  to  Christ,  and  to  men  for  Christ’s  sake.  He  did  his 
part.  He  spent  and  was  spent  He  preached  in  Asia  and  opened  the  gates  ol 
Europe.  But  what  was  Paul’s  debt,  was  the  debt  of  the  whole  church  and  is  the 
debt  ol  the  whole  church  to-day.  It  is  your  debt.  It  is  mine.  It  is  the  debt  of 
every  Christian  believer  in  every  land,  in  every  town  and  city,  every  hamlet 
and  farm  house,  whether  old  or  young,  strong  or  weak,  rich  or  poor.  We 
owe  it  to  Him  who  bought  us  with  His  own  blood  and  hath  made  us  heirs  of 
an  heavenly  inheritence,  that  we  pay  our  debt  of  love  and  gratitude,  by  giv- 
ing the  gospel  news  to  all  the  children  of  Adam. 

No  claims  of  our  own  favored  and  exalted  nation,  no  anxiety  about  our 
country’s  future,  no  love  for  our  noble  Republican  institutions,  no  attachment 
to  the  land  of  our  heroic  fathers,  no  desire  for  ease  or  pleasure,  or  the  repose 
of  civilized  life  and  society,  and  no  amount  of  labor  and  expense  and  self- 
denial  bestowed  upon  home  evangelizatio.i  in  its  manifold  forms  can  absolve 
11s  from  the  solemn  and  awful  and  ever-accumulating  debt  we  owe  to  those 
who  are  sitting  in  the  region  and  shadow  of  death. 

IX.  It  is  sometimes  asked  in  a spirit  of  human  calculation,  does  it  pay? 
Has  it  paid  the  church  to  embark  in  the  great  work  of  Christian  Missions ; to 
send  its  sons  and  daughters  away  from  home  and  country,  to  live  and  (lie  in 
heathen  and  Mohammedan  empires?  To  fall  victims  to  deadly  climates,  to  he 
massacred  by  Chinese  pirates  and  Moslem  fanatics,  to  struggle  with  difficult 
languages,  to  spend  their  lives  in  laying,  in  obscurity,  the  foundations  of  the 
Church  and  a Christian  civilization  among  the  barbarians  of  Africa,  and  the 
haughty  and  hardened  populations  of  Asia  ? Has  it  paid  our  church  to  set 
aside  so  great  a sum  of  money  annually  to  be  sent  out  of  the  country,  and 


18 


to  consume  so  much  of'  our  time  and  energies  upon  an  object  so  remote, 
for  the  sake  of  people  whom  we  have  never  seen,  and  from  whom  we 
may  never  in  this  world  receive  one  word  of  thanks  or  one  message  of 
approbation?  There  may  be  those  who  would  bid  us  ask  ourselves  to-day 
whether,  in  the  process  of  our  higher  spiritual  arithmetic,  we  are  satisfied  that 
this  laborious,  expensive  and  ever-growing  and  ever-exacting  enterprise  has 
turned  our,  to  our  advantage;  and  whether,  on  the  whole,  we  might  not  bet- 
ter abandon  the  work  and  apply  ourselves  to  labors  more  near  at  hand,  more 
cheaply  performed,  requiring  less  sacrifice,  and  giving  more  visible  and  tan- 
gibly profitable  results. 

Fathers  and  bretheren,  the  mere  mention  of  such  a question,  the  meas- 
ing  of  such  a celestial  work  by  such  a low  and  terrestial  scale,  seems  a profan- 
ation. 

The  work  of  saving  a lost  world  is  a work  of  unselfish  Christian  love.  It 
repudiate  s the  process  of  cold  calculation.  It  gives  with  no  thought  of  receiv 
ing.  it  is  a necessity  of  the  Christian  life.  It  must  be  and  cannot  help  being. 
It,  is  the  irrepressible  firh  in  the  soul  of  the  Christian  disciple.  It  will  work 
and  suffer,  and  find  delight  in  labor,  and  joy  in  its  sufferings.  It  is  born  of 
communion  with  Christ,  and  has  caught  his  self-giving,  world-loving  Spirit. 

Enter  the  room  of  a loving  mother,  as  she  bears  in  her  arms  her  sick- 
child,  afflicted,  it  may  be,  with  loathsome  disease;  note  her  tender  patient  care 
through  midnight  hours,  as  worn  and  weary,  she  watches  on,  hopes  on  and 
suffers  on  with  her  suffering  child ; and  would  von  dare  to  ask  her  coolly, 
mother,  does  it  pay? 

Would  you  ask  the  shepherd,  seeking  his  lost  sheep,  does  it  pay? 

Would  you  ask  the  apostle,  shipwrecked,  scourged,  stoned,  persecuted, 
hated,  robbed,  imprisoned  and  betrayed  for  Christ  sake — does  it  pay? 

Love  is  its  own  reward.  Our  estimate  of  this  work  is  that  of  Christ  our 
Lord.  He  came  to  seek  and  to  save,  to  rescue  the  lost,  and  the  work  of  the 
rescue  is  to  continue  as  long  as  there  are  lost  ones  to  be  rescued.  All  we 
need  to  know  of  heathen  lands  is,  “are  there  men  there?” 

Veins  of  gold  and  silver  and  deposits  of  diamonds  will  draw  men  in 
thousands,  to  endure  exposure  and  hardship,  encamp  in  the  wilderness  amid 
snow  and  ice,  and  with  marvelous  patience  and  perseverence  build  up  cities 
and  states.  Gold  will  draw  men  anywhere  and  always.  But  in  the  history 
of  the  church,  men  draw  the  gold  from  willing  givers.  A newly  opened  door 
to  men  on  the  Congo  opens  the  coffers  of  the  church,  and  draws  not  only 
the  gifts  Imt  the  givers  of  self  and  life,  to  the  rescue  of  Africa’s  newly  discov- 
ered millions. 

The  world  says,  I will  go,  there  are  millions  of  money  iu  it.  The  ciiureti 
says,  1 will  go,  lor  there  are  milions  o i men  to  be  saved.  The  one  is  moved 
by  cold  calculation ; the  other  by  uncalculating  resistless  love. 


19 


X The  church  should  send  the  gospel  to  the  heathen  world  because  it 
believes  in  the  future  triumph  of  the  gospel. 

The  church  of  Christ  is  not  leading  a forlorn  hope.  It  moves  forward, 
full  of  the  inspiration  of  a buoyant,  joyous  faith  in  the  inherent  power  of  ihc 
gospel  to  conquer  the  world.  It  holds  no  pessimist  philosophy,  no  depressing 
conviction  that  we  are  in  a hopeless  struggle  against  overwhelming  odds. 

Holding  in  its  hand  the  imperial  commission  to  disciple  all  nations,  with 
the  promise  of  the  omnipotent,  transforming  power  of  the  Holy  Spirit  lo  change 
the  hearts  of  men,  with  the  Word  of  God,  which  is  quick  and  powerful  to 
penetrate  the  darkest  minds;  with  the  assurance  of  the  King  of  kings  Him- 
self that  in  going  to  evangelize  the  nations  He  will  be  with  us  always  unto 
the  end  of  the  world  ; with  the  past  history  of  Christian  missions  to  stimulate 
its  zeal,  with  the  knowledge  that  the  present  age  is  the  brightest  since  the 
days  of  the  apostles,  in  respect  to  the  prevalence  of  pure  religion,  in  the  faith- 
ful study  of  the  Word  of  God,  in  the  distribution  of  250, 000,000  copies  of 
the  scriptures  in  250  languages;  in  personal  consecration,  in  increasing  liber- 
ality, in  self-sacrifice  for  Christ,  in  enlarged  plans  and  labors  for  nesv  missionary 
enterprises  in  the  new  enlistment  of  the  consecrated  womanhood  of  the 
church,  giving  a new  meaning  to  the  68th  Psalm  vs.  11:  “The  Lord  giveth 

the  word,  and  the  women  that  publish  the  glad  tiding  are  a great  host,”  until 
25  women’s  boards  of  missions  have  became  a mighty  power  in  the  world  ; in 
the  rapidly  increasing  facilities  of  intercourse  between  the  nations  and  tribe; 
of  the  earth  ; in  The  growing  power  and  influence  of  Christian  nations,  and  the 
waning  power  o!  Paganism  and  Mohammedanism,  in  the  steady  crumbling  of 
the  walls  and  the  gates  which  had  barred  the  entrance  of  Christian  missions 
lor  ages  and  in  the  full  equipment  of  all  the  great  evangelical  Christian  churches 
of  all  continents  for  a general  aggressive  movement  upon  the  whole  unevan- 
gelized world,  the  Church  of  Christ,  which  “ He  hath  purchased  with  his  own 
blood,”  moves  forward,  “ fair  as  the  moon,  clear  as  the  sun,  and  terrible  as 
an  army  with  banners.” 

We  will  not,  we  cannot  believe,  that  the*  dispensation  of  the  Holy  Spirit 
has  been,  or  is,  or  is  to  be  a failure.  The  work  of  the  Spirit  is  to  reprove 
the  world,  to  guide  men  into  all  truth,  to  show  men  things  to  come,  to  lake 
of  what  is  Christ’s  and  show  it  unto  men,  and  testify  of  Christ  to  men.  He 
began  to  reveal  his  mighty  regenerating  and  transforming  power  at  the  Pen- 
tecost, displayed  it  more  and  more  in  the  Apostolic  age,  showing  that  the 
words  of  the  prophet  Joel  were  beginning  to  be  fulfilled:  “I  will  pour  out 

my  spirit  upon  all  flesh.”  Men  were  born  of  the  spirit  and  sanctified  by  the 
spirit,  and  at  times  through  all  the  ages,  the  work  of  the  spirit  has  been  mani- 
fest in  reformations,  revivals,  spiritual  awakenings  and  marvelous  spiritual 
transformations. 

Is  anything  too  hard  for  the  Lord?  Are  there  human  hearts  harder  or 


20 


viler  or  fiercer  or  more  seemingly  hopeless  than  thousands  of  those  already 
transformed  by  his  wondrous  grace ? Are  there  nations  more  debased  than 
those  already  brought  by  the  Spirit’s  work  from  the  most  revolting  and  savage 
barbarism  to  the  peace  and  light  of  Christian  life  and  character,  than  the 
Fiji  Islanders  so  recently  blood-thirsty  cannibals,  now  rejoicing  in  900 
Christian  churches? 

Is  the  command  to  disciple  the  nations  limited  to  a more  minority  of  the 
race?  Or  does  the  command  to  preach  the  gospel  mean  simply  the  formal 
utterance  of  set  gospel  phrases  for  a brief  period  by  a transient  herald,  as  if 
the  preaching  “ for  a testimony”  meant  simply  to  shout  in  the  ears  of  a few 
individuals  in  each  tribe  or  people  the  tidings  ol  their  inevitable  doom  ? 

Not  such  was  the  testimony  of  Paul  who  ir?  one  city,  for  the  space  of 
three  years,  ceased  not  to  warn  every  one  night  and  day  with  tears. 

The  great  commission  extends  from  the  ascension  of  our  Lord  to  the  end 
of  the  world.  It  is  positive,  honest  and  obligatory.  It  is  positive  as  enjoy- 
ing distinct,  clearly  defined  duties.  It  is  to  preach  the  gospel  to  every  crea- 
ture. It  leaves  no  discretion  to  the  church,  as  to  what  is  to  be  done.  The 
gospel  is  to  be  preached,  and  to  all.  It  is  an  honest  commission.  It  means 
what  it  says.  The  gospel  is  to  be  preached  thoroughly,  clearly,  patiently,  in 
faith  that  it  is  meant  to  be  the  power  of  God  unto  salvation.  It  is  not  a sham 
gospel,  nor  is  it  to  be  preached  in  a halfhearted  despairing  way.  Our  Lord 
gave  His  command  in  awful  earnest,  and  intended  that  His  gospel  should  be 
preached  as  a living,  real  witness  of  salvation  through  faith  in  Him.  It  was 
not  given  to  a close  corporation,  nor  meant  I'cra  close  corporation,  but  given 
to  the  world.  It  is  to  be  honestly  preached,  as  if  meant  for  human  salvation, 
and  not  simply  as  the  knell  of  a condemned  world.  “ God  sent  not  His  son 
into  the  world  to  condemn  the  world,  but  that  the  world  through  Him  might 
be  saved.” 

It  is  an  honest  proclamation  to  be  honestly  carried  to  mankind.  It  is  to 
be  repeated  and  repeated  and  impressed  upon  the  world,  and  renewed  gener- 
ation after  generation. 

It  is  an  obligatory  commission — not  to  be  evaded  or  shirked.  It  is  backed 
by  Supreme  authority.  It  allows  of  no  excuses.  It  must  be  obeyed  and 
obeyed  by  all  the  church  of  Christ.  We  must  do  it  or  be  found  unfaithful. 

The  question  is  not,  shall  it  be  done?  but  how  can  we  do  our  part  in  the 
work  ? 

The  Gospel  is  still  the  *•  power  of  God  unto  salvation.”  It  has  not  be- 
come weakness,  nor  is  it  dependent  upon  the  weakness  of  man. 

Its  power  rests  not  upon  any  temporary  enactment  or  transient  system 
or  feeble  human  agency.  It  is  founded  on  Infinite  Power,  and  as  such  it  is 
irresistible. 

Christ  Himself  is  working  through  the  gospel  in  the  midst  of  His  church. 


21 


As  the  God  of  Providence  lie  guides  the  affairs  of  nations,  of  men  in  masses  ; 
as  the  God  of  Grace,  He  transforms  the  hearts  and  lives  of  individuals. 

We  cannot  conceive  of  any  new  element  to  be  hereafter  introduced  into 
the  Christian  economy  which  is  to  add  to  that  power  already  infinite,  which 
is  armed  and  engaged  in  behalf  of  human  salvation. 

New  appliances  and  means  on  our  part  may  be  devised  and  put  into 
operation,  in  the  elucidation  and  application  of  the  existing  truth  of  the  gospel. 
But  let  it  be  understood  that  these  are  only  means  to  an  end.  We  may  de- 
vise no  new  gospel.  We  may  add  nothing  to  the  gospel  and  take  nothing 
from  it.  It  was  adapted  to  Asia.  Africa  and  Euiope  in  the  Apostolic  age,  and 
is  adapted  to  these  and  all  other  lands  to  day.  'I  he  gospel  which  transformed 
the  Roman  empire  can  transform  the  empires  ol  India,  C hina  and  Japan. 

And  we  mav  reverently  and  confidently  say  that  there  is  no  evidence  to 
prove  that,  even  the  personal  presence  of  our  Divine  Lord  Himself  in  the 
flesh  on  earth  again,  would  add  anything  to  that  tremendous  vitalizing  spiritual 
energy  with  which  in  the  work  of  the  Omnipotent  Spirit,  He  has  clothed  the 
gospel  of  a crucified  and  risen  Redeemer. 

It  was  expedient  for  the  church  and  the  world  that  He  should  go  away,  to 
send  the  mighty  enlightener,  the  Spirit  ol  truth.  And  that  Spirit  has  wrought 
mightily,  is  still  working  mightily  and  will  still  work  mightily  in  the  future 
salvation  of  the  world. 

The  weakness,  the  halting,  the  loss  of  power  and  efficiency,  are  all  in  the 
human  i:  struments.  in  the  slackness  ol  the  church,  in  unbelief,  in  indifference, 
in  narrowness  of  vision.  The  triumphal  chariot  of  His  Kingly  Majesty  will 
move  omvard,  whether  we  ride  upon  it  or  be  crushed  beneath  it,  or  be  left  far 
behind.  And  even  were  it  supposed  that  our  Lord  might  return  and  dwell  on 
earth  again  in  human  form,  what  does  the  supposition  involve  ? Nothing  less 
than  a second  humiliation.  His  humiliation  preceded  His  exaltation,  and  the 
exaltation  necessarily  followed  in  the  law  of  the  Divine  economy,  the  humilia- 
tion. For  the  kingdom  of  God  is  a growth,  an  advance,  a progress  from  lower 
to  higher,  from  foundation  to  topstone,  from  seed  to  fruit,  from  type  to  anti- 
type, from  promise  aud  prophecy  to  glorious  fulfilment.  It  is  not  a 
retrogression,  a return  to  beggarly  elements  and  scaffoldings  after  the 
glorious  temple  is  once  completed  with  triumphal  shouts  of  “ grace,  grace 
unto  it.” 

There  will  be  no  second  humiliation  of  our  Lord.  And  what  conceivable 
condition  in  which  He  could  reign  on  earth  in  bodily  visible  form  in  this  pres- 
ent world,  with  all  that  such  reigning  involves,  could  be  other  than  a humilia- 
tion as  compared  with  the  transcendent  glory  ir.  which  He  now  reigns  on  high 
as  King  of  kings  and  Lord  of  lords?  To  appear  on  earth  in  His  glory  would 
smite  with  blindness  every  human  beholder,  and  to  reign  in  any  circumstances 
on  an  earthly  localized  material  throne,  would  involve  the  very  conditions  of 


limitation  as  to  space  and  time,  from  which  the  mission  of  the  Holy  Spirit  was 
intended  to  free  His  church  and  the  world  forever. 

It  has  been  gravely  urged,  and  that  by  Christian  writers,  that  we  are  not 
to  expect  the  conversion  of  the  world  from  any  increase  of  our  present  means 
of  evangelizing  the  nations,  nor  by  any  working  of  the  Divine  Spirit,  but  “ by 
a stupendous  display  of  Divine  wrath  upon  all  the  apostate  and  ungodly.” 
The  universal  church  is  to  be  established,  not  by  gradual  conversion  more  or 
less  rapid,  under  this  dispensation,  but  by  the  personal  advent  of  our  Lord 
Himself ; not  by  an  extension  of  the  gospel,  the  labors  of  ministers,  or  any' 
gracious  instrumentality  now  at  work,  but  by  the  angels  of  God.”  Again, 
“ the  world  is  not  growing  better,  but  worse,  under  all  human  efforts.”  “The 
power  of  Christ  in  a new  moral  system,  is  to  complete  what  His  grace  has 
failed  to  accomplish  in  this.”  These  quotations  would  indicate  that  the  work 
of  evangelizing  the  world  is  a hopeless  task : that  in  attempting  to  fulfill 
Christ’s  command  we  are  “ feeding  the  church  upon  unauthorized  speculations,” 
and  that  the  only  true  course  for  the  church  is  to  fold  its  arms  in  fatalistic 
melancholy,  and  await  those  awful  scenes  of  desolation  which  are  to  sweep 
away  the  pagan  nations,  and  by  unparalleled  judgments,  purge  the  earth  for 
the  abode  of  God’s  elect. 

It  is  urged  that  prophecy  abounds  in  predictions  % of  dire  events  and 
judgments  which  are  to  precede  and  accompany  the  final  triumph  of  the 
church. 

But  is  the  destruction  of  the  unbelieving  nations  the  only  possible  service 
to  be  rendered  by  Divine  judgments  in  the  history  of  the  church  and  the 
world?  Have  not  the  revolutions  and  convulsions  the  wars  and  upturnings 
of  the  past  2,000  years  proved  mighty  auxiliaries  to  the  advancing  kingdom 
of  our  God?  Were  those  who  preached  the  gospel  to  Europe,  and  to  our 
pagan  ancestors  in  the  British  Isles,  and  by  whose  labors  whole  nations  were 
Christianized,  utterly  mistaken  in  their  principles  and  modes  of  operation?  If 
it  was  right  to  Christianize  one  nation,  why  not  all  nations,  especially'  when 
the  Lord  has  bidden  us  disciple  them  all.  Have  not  the  judgments  of  God 
proved  to  be  the  ploughshare  by  which  the  soil  has  been  upturned  to  receive 
the  good  seed  of  the  Word  1 

God,  even  our  God,  is  on  the  throne.  He  will  overturn  and  overturn  in 
the  future  as  He  did  in  the  past,  when  He  prepared  the  way  for  the  coming  of 
the  Messiah  to  the  world,  and  opened  the  way  for  Jews  and  Gentiles  to 
receive  the  gospel. 

Have  we  not  seen  in  our  own  lifetime  the  workings  of  God’s  mighty 
hand,  in  great  political  and  social  overturnings  in  China  and  India,  in  Japan 
and  Madagascar,  in  Africa  and  continental  Europe,  in  European  and  Asiatic 
Turkey,  which  for  the  time  being  have  seemed  to  threaten  the  very  existence 
of  the  church  in  those  lands,  and  yet  have  turned  out  to  its  actual  growth  and 


advancement?  Without  alluding  in  detail  to  the  Tae  Ping  revolt,  which  in 
twenty  years  is  estimated  to  have  caused  the  death  of  200  millions  of  human 
beings,  the  Sepoy  rebellion,  which  shed  so  much  of  innocent  blood,  the  Japan- 
ese political  revolution,  the  upheaving  in  Madagascar,  the  American  civil 
war,  the  European  wars  terminating  in  Solferitto,  Sadowa  and  Sedan,  all  of 
which  broke  the  power  of  hoary  systems  of  wrong  or  complicity  with  wrong, 
and  the  most  of  which  gave  a now  impulse  to  human  liberty;  let  us  glance 
briefly  at  the  lour  convulsions  which  have  shaken  the  Ottoman  Empire  within 
thirty  years,  as  an  illustration  of  the  fact  that  the  cause  of  truth  and  of  right- 
eousness in  the  world  gains  some  of  its  noblest  victories  through  the  agency 
of  blood  and  terror,  of  massacre  and  revolution. 

The  Crimean  War,  which  for  a season  convulsed  the  whole  Turkish  Em- 
pire, exciting  latent  Mohammedan  fanaticism  and  threatening  to  roll  backward 
the  rising  tide  of  light  and  liberty,  resulted  in  guaranteeing  protection  and  a 
civil  autonomy  to  the  evangelical  communities  in  Turkey.  The  Sultan  gov- 
erns his  Empire  through  the  various  religious  hierarchies.  The  Patriarchs 
and  bishops  are  responsible  to  the  government  for  the  payment  of  the  taxes 
of  the  Christian  sects,  and  the  heads  of  other  religious  sects  for  theirs.  When 
evangelical  Christianity  suddenly  appeared  in  all  parts  of  the  Empire  its  ad- 
herents had  no  political  status  or  recognition.  They  were  outlawed  by  all 
and  preyed  upon  by  all.  False  tax  levies  and  forged  claims  were  followed 
by  persecution  and  imprisonment,  and  there  was  no  relief. 

The  Crimean  war  gave  Christian  England  the  right  to  insist  upon  pro- 
tection to  the  evangelical  communities.  They  were  organized  under  wakeels 
corresponding  to  the  religious  heads  of  the  older  sects,  and  thus  the  gospel 
for  the  first  time  had  a fair  chance  to  grow  and  extend  under  the  protection 
of  the  Sultan  himself.  And  twenty  years  later,  a prominent  Mohammedan 
gentleman  of  Constantinople  wrote  to  an  American  friend  as  follows  : “ These 
educational  and  missionary  enterprises  of  your  countrymen  have  convinced 
me,  (1)  that  Christian  philanthropy  is  something  we  Moslems  neither  know 
nor  practice.  (2)  That  the  religion  which  produces  such  fruit  is  adapted  to 
the  wants  of  man.  (3)  That  your  countrymen  are  the  best  friends  of  Turkey, 
if  friendship  is  measured  by  what  it  does.  (4)  That  their  work  in  this  country 
is  already  too  strong  to  be  destroyed  by  any  human  power,  and  (5)  is  as 
sure  to  advance  as  a tree  is  to  grow.  It  has  vitality  in  it.  (6)  That  they 
work  on  a principle  exactly  opposite  to  that  of  our  government.  Our  theory 
is  that  the  people  exist  for  the  government  and  the  country  for  the  capital. 
But  your  countrymen  believe  in  work  for  the  people.  They  are  opening  up 
oases  all  over  our  desert.  When  the  day  shall  come  that  our  people  shall  be 
educated  in  your  schools,  when  our  intellectual  and  moral  life  shall  be  molded 
by  your  teachings  and  actual  religious  freedom  makes  it  possible  for  us  to  seek 
for  all  the  elements  of  power  in  the  institutions  your  country  has  given  ours, 
then  indeed  will  there  be  occasion  for  universal  rejoicing/’ 


24 


The  Syrian  massacres  of  1860  illustrate  the  same  subordination  of  the 
wildest  outbreaks  of  human  passion  to  the  Divine  plan  for  the  advancement 
of  Christ’s  kingdom  in  the  world.  Previous  to  1860  ignorance  and  fanaticism, 
with  hostility  to  education  and  evangelical  Christianity,  prevailed  throughout 
Syria.  The  masses  looked  on  the  Bible  as  a forbidden  book,  and  the  mission- 
aries as  enemies  of  the  human  race.  The  city  of  Damascus  was  the  citadel 
of  Mohammedan  bigotry.  As  one  of  the  sacred  cities  with  Mecca  and  Jeru- 
salem it  was  exempt  from  taxation  and  military  conscription.  The  code  of 
the  Khalif  Omar  for  the  humiliation  of  the  Christian  Zimmehs  was  still  in 
force.  Christians  could  dress  only  in  black  and  were  forbidden  to  ride  on 
horseback  in  the  streets.  In  every  way  they  were  treated  with  contempt  and 
kept  in  subjection,  and  haughty  Damascus  looked  down  on  the  Christian  world 
as  infidels  and  outcasts. 

On  the  9ih  of  July,  1860,  the  Moslem  populace,  aided  bjT  Druzes,  Tur- 
kish regulars,  Kurds  and  Bedouin  Arabs,  began  the  work  of  pillage,  massacre 
and  burning.  Already  thousands  of  Christians  had  been  massacred  in  Deirel- 
komer,  Hasbeiya  and  Jezzin.  Scores  of  towns  and  villages  were  in  ashes 
mingled  with  the  blood  of  the  slain. 

The  whole  Christian  quarter  of  Damascus  was  plundered  and  burned, 
6,000  Christians  massacred,  and  women  and  girls  were  carried  off  to  Moham- 
medan harems.  But  for  the  noble  interposition  of  Abdul-Kadir,  the  Algerine 
prince,  not  a Christian  would  have  escaped.  He  rescued  12,000  men,  women 
and  children  and  guarded  them  in  the  fortress  until  relief  came  from 
Beirut. 

All  Syria  was  in  terror  and  tears.  The  missionary  work  seemed  at  an 
end.  Churches  and  schools  were  destroyed  and  Christians  massacred  or  left 
widows  or  orphans.  The  labor  of  years  seemed  lost,  and  darkness  settled 
over  the  land.  But  out  of  that  darkness  came  light. 

Forced  by  Christian  Europe.  Fuad  Pasha  hastened  from  Constantinople 
with  an  army.  French  troops  held  Beirut,  and  a British  fleet  of  25  line  of 
battle  ships  anchored  in  the  harbor.  Fuad  Pasha,  by  forced  marches,  reached 
Damascus.  The  guilt}”  Pasha  who  had  presided  at  the  massacre  with  the 
Ulema,  the  Mufti,  Kadi,  and  leading  civil  and  military  officers  came  out  to 
meet  him.  They  were  thrown  into  irons  and  imprisoned.  Within  a few 
hours  120  officers  and  men,  including  the  Pasha,  were  shot,  and  fifty-six  of 
the  leading  citizens,  men  of  rank,  learning  and  wealth,  were  hung.  The  best 
Moslem  house  was  turned  into  a Greek  church.  The  wretched  refugees  w'ere 
lodged  temporarily  in  Moslem  houses,  and  then  sent  to  Beirut  and  fed  at  gov- 
ernment expense. 

The  Christian  quarter  was  rebuilt  at  Moslem  expense  and  heavy  taxes 
laid  on  all  Mohammedans.  Every  young  man  between  the  ages  of  IS  and 
40  was  drafted  into  the  Turkish  army,  and  sent,  with  his  hands  in  wooden 


25 


storks,  to  Beirut,  and  thence  transported  to  some  remote  part  of  the  empire. 

Haughty  Damascus  had  made  a holocaust  of  Christian  victims,  but  was 
itself  humbled  in  the  dust.  Taxes  and  the  conscription  serve  as  a perpetual 
reminder  of  its  departed  glory.  The  Mount  Lebanon  province  was  reorgan- 
ized under  a Christian  Pasha,  and  from  that  time  to  this  has  enjoyed  the  best 
system  of  government  in  the  whole  Turkish  Empire. 

The  20,000  refugees  in  Beirut,  fed  and  clothed  for  four  months  by  the 
charity  of  Protestant  England,  America  and  Germany,  at  the  hands  o(  mis- 
sionaries, learned  to  respect  and  esteem  them  as  their  best  friends. 

The  Arabic  Testament  just  completed  was  ready  to  he  carried  by  them 
all  over  the  land.  Schools  were  in  demand.  All  the  leading  literary  and 
religious  institutions  ol  Syria  date  back  to  that  era  ol  upheaval  and  change. 
Then  began  in  fact  the  new  life  of  modern  Syria.  The  hand  of  God  was 
breaking  up  the  old  and  preparing  for  the  new.  Seminaries,  colleges,  hospi- 
tals, printing  presses  and  journals  began  to  appear  in  the  reconstructed  towns 
and  cities  of  that  year  of  massacre  and  ruin,  and  the  popular  mind  was 
awakened  from  the  sleep  of  ages. 

In  the  Bulgarian  Arar  of  18  77,  when  fiendish  atrocities  of  every  kind  had 
revealed  again  the  frenzy  of  Mohammedan  fanaticism,  the  Turkish  power  was 
once  more  humbled.  Mohammedan  political  prestige  greatly  lessened,  and 
millions  of  Christian  subjects  treed  from  the  Moslem  yoke  forever.  New 
guarantees  for  liberty  of  conscience  were  exacted  from  the  Porte,  and  reforms 
promised,  whose  execution  will  be  insisted  upon  by  Christian  Europe,  even 
though  temporarily  delayed. 

In  1882,  the  wild  spirit  of  Mohammedan  bigotry  broke  out  once  more, 
and  the  streets  of  Alexandria  ran  with  Christian  blood.  The  revolt  of 
Arabi  Pasha  threatened  the  lives  ol  the  Christian  population  and  the  destruc- 
tion of  religious  liberty  in  Egypt,  with  a return  to  the  cruelties  ol  the  bastinado 
and  the  worst  features  of  Egyptian  rule. 

The  interposition  of  Eneland,  the  defeat  of  Arabi,  the  check  upon  rising 
Moslem  Irenzy,  and  the  shattering  of  the  Pau  Islamic  league  which  had  be- 
come a menace  tc  progress  and  civilization  in  the  East,  all  revealed  again  the 
working  of  that  hand  which  makes  no  mistakes,  and  that  wise  and  glorious 
Providence  of  God,  which  overrules  all  things  for  His  own  glory. 

Truly,  though  the  heathen  rage  and  the  people  imagine  a vain  thing. 
‘•He  that  sitteth  in  the  heavens  shall  laugh.”  “ When  the  judgments  of  God 
are  in  the  earth,  the  inhabitants  of  the  world  will  learn  righteousness.”  Isa. 
26.  “ Come,  behold  the  works  of  the  Lord,  what  desolations  he  hath  made 

in  the  earth  ; he  breaketh  the  bow  and  cutteth  the  spear  in  sunder;  he  burneth 
the  chariot  in  the  fire.  Be  still  and  know  that  1 am  God.  I will  be  exalted 
among  the  heathen ; I will  be  exalted  in  the  earth.”  Ps.  46. 

We  are  not  then  shut  up  to  interpret  the  prophecies  of  divine  judgments 


26 


as  necessarily  involving  the  destruction  of  the  heathen  nations,  and  the  failure 
of  the  Christian  dispensation  to  meet  the  wants  of  the  world.  The  wrath  of 
man  will  praise  the  Lord.  Every  revolution  leads  sooner  or  later  to  recon- 
struction. Every  upturning  of  the  soil  uproots  old  evils  and  fits  the  earth  for 
the  blessed  seed  sowing  of  the  truth. 

The  Gospel  is  fitted  for  men  and  all  men.  The  Lord’s  sons  are  coming 
from  far;  and  his  daughters  from  the  ends  of  the  earth. 

The  Holy  Spirit  has  wrought  and  is  still  working  and  will  jret  work  more 
and  more  potently  for  the  regeneration  of  the  world. 

The  world  is  not  growing  worse.  The  Church  is  gaining  on  the  world. 
In  this  land,  it  grows  almost  two  and  a-half  times  faster  than  the  population. 
The  history  of  modern  missions  is  a history  of  growing,  shining  and  ever 
increasing  light. 

When  Carey  proposed  as  a topic  of  discussion  100  years  ago  the  conver- 
sion of  the  heathen,  Dr.  Ryland,  the  presiding  officer,  said  “ Young  man  sit 
down.  When  God  pleases  to  convert  the  heathen,  He  will  do  it  without  your 
aid  or  mine.” 

And  when,  in  1796,  two  overtures  in  behalf  of  foreign  missions  were  laid 
before  the  General  Assembly  of  the  Church  of  Scotland,  the  scheme  was  de- 
nounced as  “highly  dangerous  to  the  good  order  of  society,”  and  rejected  on 
the  ground  “that  it  was  improper  and  absurd  to  propagate  the  gospel  abroad 
while  there  remained  a single  individual  at  home  without  the  means  of  relig- 
ious knowledge.” 

In  the  light  and  missionary  conviction  of  this  generation,  we  can  hardly 
credit  the  existence  of  such  ignorance  and  selfishness.  Thank  God,  the 
church  has  swept  on  in  its  course  out  of  that  dark  moral  eclipse. 

Thank  God  that  no  officer  of  any  respectable  religious  assembly,  in  our  day 
would  venture  to  suppress  advocacy  of  the  missionary  work. 

The  church  is  outstripping  the  world  in  its  onward  movement.  The 
foundations  of  the  past  have  not  been  laid  in  vain.  With  millions  of  youths 
studying  the  word  of  God,  history  will  not  repeat  itself  in  another  Romish 
apostacy. 

We  need  not  the  ministry  of  angels,  the  gift  of  miracles.  Miracles  alone 
never  converted  men.  Let  us  not  question  or  doubt  the  power  of  ihe  gospel, 
attended  by  the  power  of  the  Holy  Spirit. 

We  need  consecrated  lives,  devout  hearts,  working  hands,  united  effort, 
a recognition  of  our  stewardship  of  the  Lord’s  property. 

Let  us  be  patient  while  we  toil  on  and  pray  on,  “Thy  kingdom  come.” 
Let  us  not  be  betrayed  into  the  impatient  demand,  “Let  Him  hasten  His  work 
that  we  may  see  it,  and  let  the  counsel  of  the  Holy  One  draw  nigh  that  we  may 
know  it.”  (Isa.  5:19.) 

’The  work  goes  on  in  spite  of  low  views  and  superficial  know  3ge  of  the 


work  among  Christians;  pessimist  theories  of  the  church;  secular  misrepresen- 
tations of  missionary  work;  the  feebleness  and  mistakes  o(  the  instruments 
used;  neglect  of  missions  in  so  many  Sabbath  schools;  the  appetite  for  exag- 
gerated statistics;  the  evil  influence  of  ungodly  foreigners  in  heathen  lands; 
the  inadequate  manning  of  so  many  fields  already  occupied;  the  difficulty  of 
carrying  on  work  in  a foreign  language;  the  skepticism  of  some  as  to  men's 
need  of  the  gospel;  the  dreadful  licentiousness  in  heathen  lands;  the  power  of 
resistance  of  hoary  systems  of  error,  and  the  sleepless  vigilance  of  the  devil 
and  his  angels. 

The  cause  of  missions  cannot  fail,  will  not  fail,  must  not  fail.  Let  us  as 
individuals  and  as  a church,  here  in  this  great  assembly,  in  view  of  the  prom- 
ises and  the  past  mercies  ol  God,  conscious  of  our  own  short-comings  and  in- 
firmities. and  yet  strong  through  Christ  who  strengtheneth  us,  renewed])'  con- 
secrate ourselves  this  day  to  Christ  our  King  and  Lord,  and  resolve  that,  so 
far  as  our  personal  efforts  or  sufferings,  our  toils  and  prayers  and  sacrifices 
can  avail,  the  cause  of  missions  shall  never  fail. 

We  are  committed  to  it  for  life.  However  severe  or  protracted  the  con- 
flict, we  are  enlisted  for  the  war.  We  will  not  countour  property  as  our  own 
nor  our  lives  dear  unto  us,  nor  withhold  our  children  from  this  blessed  service. 
Nothing  that  we  can  do  shall  be  left  undone.  And  the  work  will  go  on  with 
ever  accumulating  depth  and  power.  It  will  cross  new  seas,  penetrate  new 
continents,  gladden  new  hearts,  and  bring  new  trophies  to  Christour  King  and 
Saviour. 

Wondrous  vision,  when  Christ  himself  shall  see  of  the  travail  of  his  soul 
and  be  satisfied!  Not  vet  is  the  Lord  Christ  satisfied.  Not  yet 
has  the  world  received  all  His  fulness.  Not  yet  are  His  commands 
obeyed,  His  promises  fulfilled.  His  desires  accomplished.  He  died  for 
all  He  is  waiting  for  the  “lulness  of  the  Gentiles”  to  come  in. 
Who  can  describe  that  glorious  spectacle,  when  all  shall  be  Christ’s — East, 
West,  North,  South — when  all  the  sons  and  daughters  are  brought  in  He 
will  then  be  satisfied.  His  church  will  have  fought  and  won.  Peace  and  joy, 
holiness  and  love  will  prevail,  until  at  length  shall  be  heard  great  voices  in 
Heaven  saying:  ‘‘The  kiugdoms  of  this  world  have  become  the  kingdoms  of 
our  Lord  and  of  his  Christ,  and  he  shall  reign  lor  ever  and  ever.’’ 


f 


